H. Peter Hofstee, IBM's chief architect of the Cell processor to be used in the PS3, recently gave a lecture in Austin about designing the Cell and shared some information about the design process of the processor.

There's some interested tidbits here, but we were most interested by his response to John Carmack's claim that programming for the PS3 is "a pain in the ass:"

I think whenever you have competing platforms. There are people who really like one platform vs. the other. I'm not sure I agree with...he didn't give me very many reasons why he feels that way. I got the impression that he's just someone who likes PCs more.

We dunno, man. Given that it is common knowledge that the PS2 is a nightmare to develop for compared to the XBox, it doesn't seem hard to believe that the same is true for the PS3. When Carmack talks, gamers and programmers listen: the guy is practically a giant Unicron-sized brain floating in outer space. We guess we'll have to wait and see, but Carmack's analysis tends to be spot on more often than not.

Cell Designer Talks PS3 [Next Generation]

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